Monday’s TV February 22, 2010

Well, it’s Monday, and that means that TAR was on yesterday in the States (and today on my laptop). Though this is the second episode, here’s a run down of the teams and their nicknames thus far:

Jet & Cord: TeamCowboy

Joe & Heidi: TeamSpouseAbuse

Carol & Brandy: TeamEllen

Brent & Caite: TeamMactor

Monique & Shawne: TeamLawMomma

Jordan & Jeff: TeamBigBrother

Steve & Allie: TeamDaddyDaughter

Dan & Jordan: TeamHoBro

Louie & Michael: TeamDouche

Jody & Shannon: TeamGrammy (sniff)

Even though they’re not in this episode, Dana and Adrian would have been TeamHighSchool

What sounded like it was going to be a ho-hum leg turned rather interesting when airport bus drama reared its head. Whilst most of the teams were headed all on the same bus, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Turns out there were four/five buses in total to get to the teams’ next clue in Puerto Varas, Chile! Teams Ellen and SpouseAbuse thought they had the upper hand (cutting in front of TeamDouche in the process, yay) by getting the ‘first’ bus before all the seats fill up… but it turns out that TeamBigBrother aren’t as dumb as they appear… well, half of them, anyway. They, along with TeamMactor (who are apparently ‘just as smart as they are’ according to BBJordan: how right you are!) and – for a while, TeamCowboy – taken being rejected in their stride and manage to find a quicker bus through a connecting city. However, only TeamCowboy manage to get a bus that actually leaves from the same connection point, meaning that their – slower – bus is actually the first bus after all! “The ironing is delicious,” in the words of Bart Simpson. And no one in the episode actually believes it! It’s brilliant. TeamCowboy is strangely awesome, and they were going to be called TeamBrokeback before they became so awesome. Despite my schadenfreude nearly coming true and having both mactor teams so far behind everyone else that it’d be a battle to the death, the eventual bus they got puts them on a level playing field with everyone else. Boo! The other bus contains everyone apart from TeamGrammy (sniff) who manage to get all caught up in the hubbub and find their perennial last place.

With all that bus drama, it’s a wonder there was any racing at all, but racing there was! After boating it to this island, the Detour involved either dressing a llama (awesome) or flying off a ridge into a freezing cold lake dressed like a bird (less awesome). The so-called ‘smart’ teams went for the less awesome option and proceeded to get drenched unnecessarily. All they needed to do was put a scarf and poncho on a llama – which the producers probably thought would cause more drama a la the Season 5 oxen.

The roadblock involved driving (which meant TeamHoBro were at a disadvantage, with one failing to release the handbrake when driving a car, tsk tsk) back to a farm, where they had to round up the ingredients to make some German/Chilean pastry dish and deliver them to the kitchen: no real trouble there, until Grammy showed up and provided the episode title by getting kicked in the head by a cow when underagressively milking her. It was this that would be their downfall, as their slight lead over TeamDouche (who got lost trying to find the farm, nearly bringing me schadenfreude for the second time) evaporated like evaporated milk (see what I did there?) as Grammy’s relaxed approach to racing put them in last place. TeamCowboy never lost sight of their lead, despite a rather sizeable bunching before the detour, and won a pair of sailboats: which’ll prove really useful in the middle of nowhere!

Overall, a surprisingly good episode, and one that gets better every time you think about it. Next week sees TeamEllen get all bitchy which may bring me schadenfreude again in two weeks! Can hardly wait!